The director of an immigration removal centre where allegations of brutality and racism were exposed by the BBC’s Panorama programme had previously been in charge of a children’s prison where abuse was rife.

A Guardian investigation last year revealed that Ben Saunders, the director of Brook House immigration removal centre (IRC), which featured in Monday night’s programme, and Tinsley House IRC, where children are detained, ran Medway secure training centre when children were maltreated.

Like the two IRCs, Medway STC in Kent was then run by G4S, before it gave up its children’s services after abuse and alleged corruption were exposed by the Guardian investigation and another Panorama undercover operation.

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The Guardian spoke to two women, Lela Xhemajli and Roni Moss, who had been in Medway aged 15. In 2009-10 both were at the facility when Saunders was the director.

Xhemajli alleged she had been violently restrained many times by G4S guards for non-compliance, which was against STC rules. It should only have been used as a last resort to prevent injury, damage or escape.

In February 2010, Moss suffered a miscarriage in her cell. The member of staff who answered her alarm bell did not unlock her until 25 minutes later when there were three staff in attendance. In pain and covered in blood, she was given two sanitary towels and told to “go back to sleep”.

Moss said no staff member or manager had talked to her about her ordeal and she had not been taken to hospital until after more than a week.

G4S confirmed Moss had suffered a miscarriage and that she was not taken to hospital until 10 days after her ordeal.

Although Medway held only about 70 children at the time the women were there, both say they never met Saunders. They say he never came on the units where the children were held and never spoke to a child.

Saunders left Medway to manage Brook House and Tinsley House for G4S in 2012, but returned briefly to take over Medway after its failings were exposed by the Panorama and Guardian investigations last year.

He remained there for four months until the Ministry of Justice took over the running of the centre. The then justice secretary, Michael Gove, set up an improvement board at the centre, which published its findings when the MoJ took over. Its report contained disturbing accounts of attempts by G4S to impede its investigation by withholding CCTV footage and discouraging children at Medway from speaking to investigators.

Saunders then left Medway, to resume the running of Brook and Tinsley Houses. Brook House opened in 2009 and houses more than 500 men – people who have overstayed their visa, asylum seekers and foreign criminals who have finished their prison sentence. G4S has been paid more than £100m by the Home Office to run Brook House since it opened.

In the Panorama programme, Callum Tulley, an officer at Brook House, secretly filmed fellow officers verbally and racially abusing detainees and ridiculing suicide attempts, saying they did not care if detainees died. One officer was filmed allegedly attempting to choke a detainee.

Asked whether it was appropriate that Saunders had been put back in charge of Brook House after the Guardian’s earlier findings and whether his position was secure, a G4S spokesperson said: “We are carrying out an investigation and once that is complete, we will take the appropriate action. We don’t comment on specific individuals.”

Jerry Petherick, the managing director for custodial and detention services, said: “There is no place for the type of conduct described in the allegations anywhere in G4S. Such behaviour is not representative of the many G4S colleagues who do a great job, often in difficult and challenging circumstances, across the country.”

Sally Keeble, a former MP who has campaigned against the closed culture and dangerous restraints in G4S-run detention centres, said the problems exposed were systemic.

“There is clearly something very wrong with the culture of the company when it produces these repeated outrages,” she said. “I don’t buy the idea of ‘bad apples’. It’s happened too often at G4S … Regimes like that don’t happen by accident. People further up the line have to be held accountable for what has happened on their watch.”

Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, said events at Brooke House were not an isolated incident. “Reports from places like Medway secure training centre have shown that Home Office officials are well aware of improper conduct of senior G4S staff,” she said. “Yet the government continues to pay G4S millions, and G4S continues to employ those who have run failed institutions.”